Good Intelligence
by JoelTheCat
Summary: An old nemesis comes back to haunt Brenda, but the old friend come to protect her may be worse.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything. Timelines probably totally skewed in the quest for quality femslash.

* * *

><p>"Gear up!" called Gibbs.<p>

"I'll get the van," said McGee.

"Don't bother. We are going to Los Angeles."

"I thought they had their own NCIS office," said DiNozzo.

"They do. Director wants somebody not known in the area."

"For what?" asked Ziva.

"Ask the director," said Gibbs. "Get Ducky and Abby. They're going, too."

* * *

><p>"I have no idea," said Ducky as the plane lifted off. "Gibbs will not even say how many bodies. He simply disappeared into the rear compartment."<p>

"Maybe they don't know," said Abby. "Maybe they found another oil drum full of body parts."

"Nah," said DiNozzo. "The director wouldn't waste money flying us out there. If LA couldn't handle it, they'd fly the drum to you and Ducky."

"Is that so, Agent DiNozzo?" came a voice from the rear of the plane, not Gibbs's gravelly baritone but a firm female voice.

"Director Shepard!" DiNozzo said. "You... you're coming with us?"

"Actually I thought I'd come halfway, parachute out and hitchhike back to DC."

"And which of us will be your bodyguard on this parachute expedition, Director?" asked Ziva.

"She's not gonna..." Tony began, then faltered. "Are you?" he asked the director.

"The director and I have done stranger things," said Ziva.

"Yeah," said Abby, "but that was when you were with the CIA spooky-types, right?"

"And this problem dates from that era," the Director said, settling on the arm of an aisle seat with her laptop hugged against her chest.

"Do I know about this problem?" asked Gibbs.

"No," said the Director. "At least, I don't think so. There was a time when Ziva and I... got in a little trouble, through no fault of our own. We'd been drugged and... and had problems remembering... exactly..." Shepard stopped and closed her eyes for a moment. "We didn't know we hadn't done what we were accused of, until a really good interrogator from the CIA helped us sort things out."

"The scary little stubborner?" asked Ziva.

"I think you mean Southerner," said Shepard.

"I meant what I said. She was stubborn. Also scary."

"There were times when she couldn't be gentle," said Shepard, "but in the end she saved both our careers, and now we have intelligence that there is a contract on her."

"She Navy or Marine?" asked Gibbs.

"Neither," said Shepard. "We have reason to believe the Los Angeles office has a mole, and that that mole is passing intelligence relative to the threat. That is the Navy connection. CIA cannot work a case in the US, of course, and..."

"Since when?" asked Gibbs. "As long as local law enforcement doesn't catch them."

"In this case," said Jenny, "it's impossible. So is FBI, for reasons that will become obvious."

"And we're going to protect this impossible woman?" guessed DiNozzo.

"We are going to find out who wants her dead and stop the attack, working out of a safe house independent of our local office, which is why we need Ducky and Ziva." said Shepard. "I hope we don't need Ducky, but..."

"Better safe than sorry," said the doctor.

"I would like for her to disappear," said Shepard, "and accept our protection, but she is quite high profile and I imagine her own people will take care of her security."

"'High profile?'" repeated Gibbs. "What is she, some kind of movie star?"

"That would be too simple," said Shepard. She opened her laptop and brought up a photograph of a petite blond with delicate features and a wild mane of hair. "She is Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson of the Priority Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department."


	2. Chapter 2

Decades were a concept that Brenda Leigh Johnson had no use for. Years were short enough to comprehend, and centuries long enough to mark out a lifetime, but decades were simply useless. She told herself, then, that it had not been nearly two decades since she got such a phone call. It had been seventeen years.

She had never been a field agent. People who risked their lives every day, people who made institutional enemies that would automatically destroy them if they were ever exposed, those people lived a life beyond her comprehension. Once in a while she had been assigned to debrief someone, and the stark reality of their lives still gave her nightmares. It made wearing a badge on the streets of LA look safe, and every day she thanked divine providence that she need not fear a bullet in the night or a ringing phone.

Then her phone did ring, and sent her strolling up Broadway with an ice cream cone peering into windows full of cheap clothing and pirated movies until she saw his reflected eyes looking back at her.

"There is a situation," he said. She swallowed, visualizing jumbo jets sticking out of buildings and entire days going to friends' funerals, one after the other.

"What?" she asked. "When?"

"You," he said. "Someone from the former Soviet bloc, someone who believes you have inconvenient information."

"Just me? Not... not terrorists?"

His lips smiled, but not his eyes.

"You take this cop thing seriously, don't you?" he asked.

"I do."

He laughed, shaking his head.

"We can move you," he said. "A new identity..."

"My face has been in every newspaper west of El Paso," she told him. "I was in Time and Newsweek."

"The woman who could run the LAPD," he said. "A lot of us were rooting for you. It would have made a lot of things much easier."

For some reason this gave Brenda a chill.

"We have expert plastic surgeons," he said.

"Not going to happen," she said, "but thank you very much for the offer. If you'll give me what you have..."

He did laugh then, so loudly that people looked around.

"Worth a try," she said.

"I'll give you something better," he said. "Walk across the street with me."

As soon as they turned, she saw Jenny Shepard.


	3. Chapter 3

Jenny watched the burley handler guide his asset across the street. Brenda moved as gracefully as she ever had. When the CIA was satisfied all those years ago, Ziva had wanted no more part of Brenda Leigh Johnson. Jenny had.

"There's so much more I don't remember," she had told the interrogator. "I need... I need to know."

"I've got some leave time coming," Brenda had said. "Meet me in Essaouira."

Jenny snapped back to the present when the blond clasped her hands.

"Brenda," she breathed. "How are you?"

"Not as well as I thought," Brenda drawled. "What did you do to your chest?"

Trust Brenda to be blunt.

"I got shot and had to have reconstructive surgery."

"I believe I'd sue."

"It's the government's nickel."

"Ladies," growled the handler.

"Brenda," Jenny said, "I want you to seriously think about going into protective custody."

"Can I bring the whole city of Los Angeles with me?"

"That's what I thought you were going to say."

The handler cleared his throat again, and Jenny slipped her arm through Brenda's.

"Let's walk," she said. The strolled back down the street, the CIA handler falling behind in the crowd.

"So what happens now?" Brenda asked.

"Now my team finds out what this is all about and takes out the assassin, preferably before he gets to you."

"Your team?"

"NCIS. It's more than meets the official eye, sort of a special agency..."

"I was with the company long enough to know about its relationship with NCIS."

"It's given us a world-class team. Do you remember Ziva David?"

"The little girl that was with you in...?"

"The Mossad agent."

"Mossad takes them way young, then."

"She was seventeen. She grew up, and she's on detached duty with us, now.

"I can take care of myself, thank you."

"Brenda, you don't have eyes in the back of your head."

"No, but I'm safe at work, and when we bought the house I... I thought about the things you told me, being away from other buildings with a way out the back and a garage so nobody can tell if your car's there..."

Jenny smiled, amazed at the idle conversation that had lingered in Brenda's memory.

"Home is probably not a good idea. You'll put your Will in danger." she said.

"Will?"

"They said you were married? Is it not that guy you were so crazy about when you left...?"

"No, no, not... not that guy. Fritz is with the FBI."

"That part I knew, but I just assumed... anyway, a lot of people know where you live, right?"

"Some. Mostly my squad... Jenny, I'm gon' have to tell them."

"Do they know you were CIA?"

"Not officially."

"Well, we need to see your workplace, anyway."

"Parker Center is as secure as it gets," Brenda told her. "There's really no need..."

"Brenda, I'm just an old friend. Please won't you show me where you work?"

"I guess if you put it that way..."

BANG!

Both women turned with the same fluid motion, pistols in their hands.

BANG! BANG!

A blue Chevrolet backfired one last time and rolled up Broadway toward Chinatown. Brenda flashed her badge at the concerned citizens who had been startled by the appearance of their weapons, and then she and Jenny walked on in the opposite direction.

"This gon' be hell, isn't it, Jen?"

"Hell doesn't even begin to cover it."


	4. Chapter 4

Apparently Jenny Shepard was loaded for bear. She led Brenda to a beachfront cafe crowded by more than half a dozen people. There was a small dark woman who might have been Ziva David, or might not. She bore little resemblance to the frightened teenager of years ago.

"Which ones are your team?" Brenda asked. Jenny squeezed her hand.

"All of them," she said.

"All...?" Brenda swayed for a moment, inexplicably dizzy. Jenny Shepard had brought the entire NCIS Major Crime Response Team to Los Angeles to... to do what? "Jenny, how bad is this?"

"Nothing we can't handle," said Jenny, but her delicate nostrils flared just as they had in a club in Essaouira all those years ago.

"What do you see?" Brenda had asked her back then.

"Nothing," Jenny had said, nostrils flared. She walked outside and on the spot paid a ridiculous price for a morose camel. They rode double for several hours across the moonlit Moroccan sand with Brenda's face buried in Jenny's hair and the hard weight of the other woman's gun pressed against Brenda's abdomen from its place in Jenny's waistband. At a deserted traveler's camp, Jenny allowed the camel to lumber to a resentful halt.

"I want you to wait here," she told Brenda.

Brenda closed her eyes and shook her head 'no.' A second later she felt a fleeting touch, fingers barely brushing her hair, her ears, her eyebrows. Jenny was standing very close, so close that Brenda could see the pulse in her throat.

"Wait for me," she said. "I'll come back for you."

Brenda hand't had much choice about waiting. Jenny had taken the camel. Back then Jenny had not taken 'no' for an answer. From the looks of things, Brenda thought, looking around at the serious overkill in terms of protection level, she still did not.

"We can handle this," Jenny said, and the Californian sun gleamed in her hair as if she were in Morocco.

Brenda's phone rang, and she excused herself to answer.

"What is it, Fritz?"

"I have to fly to Washington."

"Why? I mean... why?"

"Work, Brenda, what else? I have to go brief some bigwig on the difference between his backside and a hole in the ground."

"Well, that doesn't sound very important!"

"You should see the security stamps all over it. Brenda, why are you being so... you're the one who can't leave work alone! Look, I have to go, and that's it!"

"Okay. I just wish..." She looked around her at the battalion of heavy-duty protection. "I wish I could see you one more time before you go. I love you."

"I love you too." The call ended and she dropped the phone in her purse. "My husband," she told Jenny, "has been called to Washington to explain something to some FBI bigwig."

"It's better that he's out of the way," Jenny said. "He's out of danger, and we have fewer targets to protect."

"He'll be back soon enough," Brenda said.

"I dunno," said the tall man with the enormous cup of coffee. "Tobias Fornell can be particularly dense when he wants to be."

Brenda blinked, then felt one of Jenny Shepard's fingertips touch her chin and lift her jawbone until her mouth closed.

"Let's go," Jenny said.


	5. Chapter 5

The woman was a force of nature. Will Pope was not sure if he was striding down the hallway to Major Crimes or being blown along by the sheer strength of Sharon Raydor's anger. He was taller than she was. He should be able to lengthen his stride and leave her behind. Why wasn't it working?

"Commander Taylor seems to be under the impression that Robbery/Homicide has priority..."

Will tried to tune the woman out, but the task was beyond him. He rubbed his eyes as he stepped through the door to Major Crimes, hoping to find refuge there. Raydor followed him in.

It was too much. He spun on her so forcibly that she stepped back against the office door and pushed it closed.

"Captain Raydor, I have a good deal on my plate today. I have sixteen public housing tenants staging a small riot in their laundry room. I have a public school that has had twelve credible bomb threats so far today, and it's not lunchtime yet. I have an old man who may have murdered his neighbors because he believed they sacrificed his pet goat. And, Captain, I have the director of a federal agency who stepped off a plane with a full-scale task force and disappeared off the face of the earth. You will understand if I really don't care if you and Russell Taylor step on one another's toes until neither of you can walk, and you will pardon me while I do something about a situation that has me on the phone with everyone from the mayor to the director of the NSA!"

He spun again, and found Brenda Leigh looking up at him from a room with about twice as many people in it as there should have been. She was holding the hand of an auburn-haired woman.

"Jenny," she said, "this is Will Pope."

"This," said the redhead, "is Will?"

"Uh-huh. Will, this is Jenny Shepard."

He closed his eyes, hoping the extra population of the murder room would be gone when he opened them, but they were still there. He turned around again and found Sharon Raydor still trapped against the door, unable to open it until he moved. At least she wasn't talking any more. He closed his eyes, trying to fight off a sick headache, and was swept away in memory.

Brenda Leigh had been sprawled across his chest on a auburn-colored bearskin rug in front of the fireplace in Will's brother Curtis's cabin in the Smokies.

"Why does your bear dye its fur?" she had asked. "It can't be that color naturally."

"To cover its gray," he said, and coiled a strand of her silky golden curls around his hand. "Do I get a question now? About your mysterious past?"

"You know I can't answer..."

"One you can answer. Who was the last one you did this with?"

"I can't tell you about her."

Will tilted Brenda's face up and made her look at him.

"Her?"

"Well, it wasn't exactly this, of course, but..."

He rolled her over on her back and pinned her playfully, determined to get an answer of some sort if he had to tickle Brenda silly.

"So tell me something you can. Blond? Brunette? Redhead? That can't be an issue of national security."

"Redhead," Brenda said. "She had long beautiful red hair and she loved for me to brush it for her."

He released her arms and brushed the hair out of her face until it lay like a halo against the ginger fur. Brenda Leigh giggled, obviously thinking he was through talking. He kissed her forehead before continuing his questioning.

"What else?" he prompted.

"She taught me to shoot. She could toss half a dozen nickels spinning in the air and put a bullet through the center of every one of them before they hit the ground."

"How'd she get them all to spin?" he asked.

"That part's classified," Brenda answered, and traced her nails across the bare skin over his ribs. He had shuddered, but not given up.

"Name?" he had asked. "Just the first name. That can't be classified."

"Jenny," she had whispered, and touched him somewhere that drove all other thoughts out of his mind.

"Chief Pope?" Sharon Raydor's grating voice rasped through Will's memory, and he blinked and was back to a present where Brenda Leigh Johnson was looking up at him while holding the hand of an old friend with very red hair.

An old friend named Jenny.


	6. Chapter 6

The redhead was boiling inside, and Gibbs was enjoying the show. When McGee handed out the non-disclosure forms with all the national security language, she alone read every word before signing the document. She then turned and opened the door, only to freeze when Pope's voice rang out.

"Captain Raydor!"

The room fell silent.

"Close. The. Door." Pope told her.

The woman's eyes closed, but she did as she was told.

"Turn around."

She turned. Her eyes were open now, blazing with green fury. Gibbs sipped his coffee to hide his smile.

"I don't yet know," he told her "exactly what is going on here, but I suspect members of the LAPD are about to become entangled in a covert operation."

The woman shook here head.

"That is ille..."

"DID I ASK YOU A QUESTION, CAPTAIN?"

She bit her lip and shook her head. The veins in the guy's temples were bulging and his neck was cording. He really needed to get his blood pressure checked. Of course, the redhead maybe deserved it.

"No, sir." she said softly, and Gibbs's heart broke. No way that woman deserved to be spoken to in any such way.

"You are relieved of other duties for the duration of this... incident. You are temporarily assigned to Pri..."

Her eyes blazed again, then, with simply unbelievable fury.

"Yes," Pope said, "you work for Chief Johnson until this is over. Very likely one of these men will do something in the pursuit of this enterprise that will violate one of the LAPD's nine million and sixty-three rules, and when that happens I want someone from Internal Affairs on the scene to minimize the damage."

"You want me to..."

"IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT I WANT, Captain!" He pointed at the blond, who was still clutching Jenny's hand. "It matters what SHE wants."

"Yes, sir."

He pulled the door open, propelling the hapless captain into the room, and slammed it on his way out.

"Well," said the oldest of the local officers, "that sucks."

"He's got one of his sick headaches," said Chief Johnson. "He'll change his mind before the day's out."

"Please God," said the other senior local, "and I will give up fried food for a month!"

"Brenda, that won't work," said Jenny. "If we read her in on this, she's in for the long haul, and we need to brief your people now."

The object of their discussion stood by the coffeemaker, dumping spoonful after spoonful of white powder into a styrofoam cups. Gibbs stepped up beside her.

"I think that's salt," he said.

She touched a finger to it and tasted it, and then winced.

"Just when you think your day can't get any worse..."

"What," Gibbs asked her, "would you like to happen here?"

"I would like to be teleported to a world where people are sane and do not shoot each other and police officers are honest and honorable."

"Can I come, too?" he asked.

"I'd be out of a job."

"Wouldn't that be great?" he said.

A hint of a smile teased at her lips. He found himself grinning down at her as her smile widened. He heard Ducky's chuckle and saw Jenny roll her eyes and McGee and DiNozzo exchange what he sincerely hoped was not the payoff to a wager, but in the face of that green-eyed smile Leroy Jethro Gibbs cared not at all.


	7. Chapter 7

Jenny Shepard had an irresistible urge to swat Gibbs. The redhead she wasn't worried about. Gibbs went through redheads like bottles of Jack. She needed him, though, to focus his attention on Brenda Leigh and not the Chief of Police's punching bag. Jenny squeezed Brenda's hand and walked to the white-board.

"Okay," said the white-haired local officer, "let's start with something very simple. My name is Lieutenant Louis Provenza, and I work for the LAPD."

He looked around as if expecting them to reciprocate, but it was Brenda who spoke.

"Lieutenant Provenza," she said, "what do you know about an organization called NCIS?"

"The home for retired spies?" Provenza said.

The other locals laughed, until they realized that Jenny's team was dead silent and intently focused on Provenza.

"Where did you hear that?" Jenny said with a laugh that she hoped didn't sound fake.

"I dunno, it's... it's common knowledge."

"Yeah," said the other older officer. "I think we heard some guys in the next booth talking about it at breakfast a while back."

Jenny smiled at him.

"And you are...?"

"Andy Flynn. Lieutenant, Priority Homicide. Pleased to meet you."

"And...?" said Jenny, looking at the other men, who identified themselves as David Gabriel and Julio Sanchez.

"All right," said Jenny. "Now, what is this that you've heard about NCIS?"

"Weird stuff," said Sanchez.

"Nothing that could be true," said Gabriel. "They're supposed to have this special team with people that used to be with the CIA, and snipers, and..."

"And somebody from Mossad," said Flynn.

"The one I liked," said Provenza, "is the medical examiner that was in the British Secret Service, double-oh-seven with a scalpel."

Most of Jenny's team was staring at Ducky, but Gibbs looked at the director.

"That leak is worse than we thought," he said. "That one doesn't usually get out."

"I didn't know..." said DiNozzo.

"I did," said Ziva. "Mossad has a file four centimeters thick."

"Dear me," said Ducky, "I wonder what became of the rest of it."

"Can I?" Brenda asked Jenny.

"Might as well."

"Gentlemen," said Brenda Leigh, "may I present Director Jennifer Shepard of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service? And her team of... specialists."

Not the best start to a briefing, Jenny told herself, but it could have been much worse.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, and began to write a name on the board. The door burst open and a black man with a mustache and a receding hairline glared down at Brenda.

"Chief Johnson!" he said. "Is there some reason Priority Homicide is dumping a murdered goat on Robbery/Homicide?"

Brenda blinked at the man.

"It's not murder," she said.

"But..."

"You cannot murder a goat, Commander Taylor. A goat is an animal. Animals cannot be murdered. At worst, it can be a victim of cruelty to animals, depending on how it was killed. However, this particular goat was stolen before being dispatched, making its remains evidence in... what would be the word... a robbery?"

Jenny managed not to laugh, although there seemed to be some chuckling among the local officers. Brenda Leigh had never been known for taking prisoners. Once as they lay amid rumpled sheets with the breeze of a ceiling fan caressing their bare skin, a confused waiter had burst into their room with someone else's room service. Brenda had convinced the man that she was lying naked in another woman's arms as a spiritual exercise. It probably helped that she hadn't bothered putting her clothes on. The flustered waiter not only left them alone, he left the food. Jenny could close her eyes and see Brenda standing naked with the silver tray cover in her hands, sniffing the steam rising from the food. And Jenny could remember, blow by blow, exactly what they had done when Brenda came back to bed.

"...SEX!" said the man in the door, and Jenny refocused her attention on him.

"That is still animal abuse, Commander," said Brenda, "not Homicide... excuse me?"

A boy with a cardboard tray of coffee had pushed into the room past Taylor.

"Coffee for Priority Homicide?" he said. "Free samples from a new catering company. Chief Johnson?" he said to Gibbs's redhead and handed her a cup.

Gibbs took the tray.

"Thank you," he said, and slipped the boy what must have been a sizable tip, because the youngster disappeared with expedition.

"Commander Taylor," Brenda said, "I'm sorry, but you are just going to have to deal with the goat. I have problems of my own."

Her eyes flickered toward Gibbs and his redhead, who was sipping the sample coffee with mischief in her eyes. Taylor's eyebrows shot up his forehead.

"Captain Raydor! What...? Well, I... well, I'll just leave you ladies to... to deal." Taylor stepped outside with a bemused look on his face.

"Brenda," Jenny said as she scrubbed the letters from the white-board, "we cannot work like this."


	8. Chapter 8

Fritz tossed the last folder atop the pile at the back of his cubicle and rubbed his eyes. A balding man's head appeared over the partition.

"Finished already?"

"Agent Fornell..."

"Tobias."

"Tobias, which of these... penny-ante bits of fluff do you think you need my help with?"

"None of them," he said, "although a fresh pair of eyes is never a bad thing, so if you happen to notice any little thing..."

"Agent..."

"Tobias."

"Tobias, why am I here?"

"Because you have invaluable insight into..."

"...into bullshit!"

"That would be one way of putting it. Where did you get this... spectacular ability?"

"You should meet my wife."

"I would appreciate that opportunity. I'm told she is an extraordinary woman."

"Come back to Los Angeles with me, and you can see for yourself."

"That's a very bad idea."

"WHY?"

Fornell... Tobias stepped away from the barrier. Fritz stood up.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking across it. "I'm usually more of a team player than this."

"Don't apologize. I can't imagine how I'd behave in your circumstances."

"At the risk of running in circles," Fritz said, "what circumstances?"

"The only reason I am considering telling you this... and this is against orders, mind you... is that there may be things we can do from here that may be a help. You have to promise me, though, that you will not go running back to Los Angeles and get someone killed."

"Okay," said Fritz.

"Not 'okay,'" said Tobias. "I want your word."

"You have it," said Fritz.

"All right," said Tobias. He handed Fritz yet another folder. "The problem seems to revolve around Rahim Zaid Ali Tamim."


	9. Chapter 9

Apparently, Ziva thought, senior American police officers were better paid than she had believed. This one's home was small, but the furnishings were of good quality and the amenities were first-rate. The local team cleared it with reasonable professionalism without being told. Ziva had not believed local law enforcement could be useful is an operation such as this, but she was beginning to change her mind. They settled around the table or on the sofa, all but Gibbs and his elegant new redhead, who had gone to feed the woman's dogs. Ziva leaned against a counter between McGee and Ducky, facing A ginger cat with a Biblical name that crouched atop the refrigerator glaring his best at the intruders in his home. Ziva did not believe he would be much of a deterrent to attackers. The dogs would have been better.

An old-fashioned blackboard appeared, and Director Shepard-Ziva found it easier to maintain propriety if she thought of Jenny so-Director Shepard took up a long white cylinder of chalk. The protectee sat at the head of her table looking up at the director.

"All right, Jenny," she said, "what is it?"

"Rahim Zaid Ali Tamim," said the director, mispronouncing the name quite badly, "was picked up... quite a number of years ago near the Iran/Iraq border with a large quantity of... an interesting substance."

Ziva watched the protectee during the director's introduction. The woman recognized the name.

"He was taken," the director continued, "to an undisclosed location, where he was questioned by the CIA."

"He died," said the protectee. "He died a long time ago. Who would care...?"

"Chief," said the young black man, "exactly how did this guy die?"

"Go ahead," the director told her, "but all of you remember those waivers you signed. Brenda Leigh?"

"He died... between rounds of interrogation."

"Your interrogation?" asked Gabriel.

"He died under torture?" Flynn asked.

"I never saw that," the woman said. "They made sure we never saw... anything like that. But they couldn't hide the marks on them."

"Okay," said Provenza, "so he died. Then what?"

"I quit."

"That why?"

"Not just that," she said. "All of them. Men who swore they had no connection to anything, men and adolescent boys and..." At this point she looked directly at Ziva. "...and a little girl who should have been attending her prom, not..." She shook her head and looked down into her lap.

"You quit," said the director, "immediately after Rahim Zahid Ali Tamim died."

"So," said DiNozzo, "his relatives have been stalking her ever since?"

"His relatives never knew her name," the director replied.

"His... colleagues," said Sanchez, "took this long?"

Beside Ziva Ducky shifted his weight, and the director looked directly at him.

"Dr. Mallard? You have something to add?"

"Only that I'm not sure that is quite the right question. It seems to me that we should be asking what Rahim Zahid Ali Tamim knew about his colleague's activities, and why that knowledge has become so significant at this late date that those colleagues are seeking to eliminate anyone to whom he might have passed that information."

Ziva repressed a smile. Ducky's pronunciation was as perfect as his logic. As Gibbs might say, you could take the man out of MI-6, but you couldn't take MI-6 out of the man.


	10. Chapter 10

Jenny finally called a break an hour later. The local officers seemed in shock, and her own people couldn't tell her anything else until they had their equipment in place. Abby, McGee and Lieutenant Tao were turning Brenda Leigh's dining room into an impromptu command center. Ducky was setting up a first aid station in the spare bedroom, and DiNozzo and Gabriel were doing a perimeter check. Provenza and Flynn sat across from one another at the kitchen table, working up a timeline on a yellow legal pad. Brenda wasn't saying anything, which was a bad sign in Jenny's experience. Detective Sanchez came and sat on the footstool in front of Brenda's chair.

"Chief," he said, "I get the feeling..."

"Yes, Detective?"

"Look, I don't know, and I don't want to know... but I was a Marine. I don't know how many times we had to move in a hurry, and all they told us was we had good intelligence. I don't know where that intelligence came from, but a lot of Marines are alive now who wouldn't have been if we hadn't... heard. I guess what I'm saying is... for all I know, you maybe saved my life before I ever met you, and if it wasn't me, it was somebody else. So... so thank you."

Brenda Leigh smiled at him. Her fugue wasn't totally dispelled, but the clouds were definitely lifting. Jenny gave the detective a surreptitious thumbs up and mouthed "Thank you." He smiled and excused himself, and Ziva wandered in their direction.

Jenny had been dreading this encounter since she saw Brenda's name in the initial report. Ziva did not react well to intensive debriefing, even today. As a girl she had come to hate Brenda Leigh Johnson. For months after the incident the worst rejoinder she'd had when she disagreed with Jenny had been "You're just like her!" If Jenny could have done, she would have left Ziva in Washington, but what that would have done to the cohesion of the team might be irreparable. Jenny would just have to referee. She touched Brenda's glossy hair, and was rewarded with a smile. Then Ziva was there.

"Shalom," she said to Brenda. "Zichri oti?"

"I do," Brenda replied. "I remember you well, but you surely speak English?"

"I knew English before, but we always spoke in Hebrew."

"Seemed like a good idea," the Chief said, "but it didn't seem to make much difference."

"It would have done, had I had the sense to trust you as Director Shepard did."

"I have a niece the age you were then," the chief said. "She doesn't trust me, and she's not..."

"I can imagine," said Ziva. "I only wished to say that I also have reason to thank you. You certainly saved my life."

"No, sweetie," said the chief. "Your career, maybe, but..."

"You know very little of Mossad," the girl said, "which is perhaps a good thing. At any rate, I wished you to know that I realize that you served with honor, and that I am proud to help to protect you."

"Thank you, Ziva," Jenny said, and the girl excused herself to join the timeline committee. There was a beat of silence before cacophony erupted in the back of the room, with Tao calling for his chief and the two NCIS agents babbling at Jenny.

"We need to kill the broadband connection," Abby said.

"This," Jenny told Brenda, "is Abby Sciuto..."

"You're Abigail Sciuto?" Tao interrupted. "The Persistence of Toxic...?"

"You've read it?" Abby said.

"I heard you speak..."

"Okay!" said Jenny, holding up both hands. "Brenda, where is your modem and your router? Abby and Agent McGee are going to need to make some adaptations."

"It's interfering," said Agent McGee, "with our secure connection to... our secure connection."

"Am I going to be able to get to my email?" Brenda asked.

"Brenda," the director said, "I think you know better than that, don't you?"

"I know this whole thing is silly," Brenda said. "Ali was never involved in mass terrorism. He wasn't the sort to go claiming responsibility for random public violence. Assassination, carefully targeted accidents, or poisonings, yes, but nothing that would call for this level of protection."

In Jenny's opinion, a stinging insect in Brenda's vicinity called for more protection than this, but saying anything like that would probably make Brenda kick the NCIS team back to Washington. Instead she patted her old friend's shoulder.

"I'm glad you remember a little. It'll make things easier."

"I remember it all," Brenda told her. "I remember every minute of every day. I just wish... I wish I could forget."


	11. Chapter 11

When the elevator started down, Sharon's stomach stayed behind. Apparently the free coffee had not been all that digestible. She gripped Gibbs's arm for support.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Just a little giddy," she said. "I don't usually get like this."

"Something that's going around?"

She looked up at his intensely blue eyes and his boyish smile, and her head swam.

"I don't know," she said.

Then the elevator stopped and her knees buckled. Gibbs caught her around the waist as the door opened. The smell of his after-shave enveloped her.

"Is this your floor?" he asked.

It was all Sharon could do to nod.

"Left or right?" he asked.

"Left."

She made herself walk down the hallway, but she couldn't get her key in her lock. Gibbs took it from her and unlocked the door, then steadied her against the enthusiastic welcome of Wumpus and Hurkle.

"Dobermans?" he said with a laugh. "I expected poodles or pomeranians!"

"Dobies," she said. "Let them out, please."

She pointed at the sliding door that lead to the basement apartment's patio. Gibbs walked across the room, trailed by the two excited dogs, and opened the door for them, then came back to Sharon.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"I haven't felt like this since I was a teenager," she said. "You must think I'm awfully... forward." He must think she was an utter slut, but Sharon didn't care.

"It happens to the best of us," he said. He touched her arm. She laid a hand on his chest, and suddenly her head swam and she felt herself blush as one tiny spasm shot through her, followed by a momentary gush of tears.

"Cry all you want," he said, and his fingers combed through her hair. "It's just the stress. If I had a boss like yours..."

"He's not usually like that," she told him. "He was having a very bad day." She wasn't sure why she was defending Chief Pope, but she would have done a great deal right then to keep Gibbs's hands right where they were.

"He was taking it out on you," Gibbs said. "He do that a lot?"

"Does your boss not do that sometimes?"

The look that flashed across his face was not anger, but hurt.

"She has a lot on her mind right now. She... she's very worried about... an old friend that she cares a whole lot about."

"Let's not talk about them," Sharon said.

"What should we talk about?" he asked, his grin returning. Sharon traced his lips with her fingertip, then, emboldened, reached up and kissed him. His eyebrows shot up, and then he kissed her back, hard, mixing the taste of him and his after shave and the free coffee all into a blur. She could not have stood had he not pinned her against the wall. Her chest brushed against his, and she squealed at the electric sensation. Strong hands grasped her waist and lifted her, pinned her higher, so that she was more... more accessible.

"You sure about this?" he asked, even as he peeled her clothing away.

"Oh, God, yes!" And she remained sure as their intensity built and swirled around them, until the very last moment when he slammed against her and gasped a name.

"Jenny!"


	12. Chapter 12

"So somebody who knew somebody who died in her custody twenty-odd years ago is trying to kill my wife?" the man said to Tobias.

"That's an oversimplification, and it wasn't her custody, but basically that's it."

"I didn't know any of this about Brenda."

"It... that case in particular is supposed to have had a very bad effect on her. She was transferred to Washington where... where her mental stability could be addressed..."

Howard's eyes widened.

"Her mental stability?" he said, his voice heavy with incredulity.

"This was nearly two decades ago," Fornell reminded him. "Back then she showed symptoms of PTSD. That meant she was no longer useful in the field, so..."

"And if she had still been useful, they would have left her out there, post-traumatic stress or no?"

"I wasn't there, Fritz. It wasn't the FBI, it was the CIA. They have different... policies."

"So then what?"

"Nothing the authorities knew at the time did her much good. They were prepared to write her off."

"What, retire her?"

Tobias had to force the words out.

"After a fashion," he said. Howard's eyes widened and the color drained from his face. He knew exactly what Tobias meant.

"So," he said, "am I out of California so your people can take care of my wife, or... so they can take care of her?"

"It isn't the FBI," Tobias said. "It's a very special agency that takes care of internal problems. The woman in charge... she's a very dear friend of your Brenda's. She will resist any attempt at... a simple solution. But the CIA is in the business of controlling information, yes."

"Okay," said Howard. Tobias thought it was a little too easy. Of course, Fritz Howard knew nothing about the rest of the NCIS team. Director Shepard would protect the asset... the woman, her friend... and Gibbs would resist a final solution, too, if the asset were not at fault. Ziva David was made of harder stuff, however, and there were rumors about someone else on that team, someone as coldly effective as a dagger made of ice, someone even Tobias wasn't cleared to know about.

"So what happened?" Howard asked. "How did Brenda get sane... okay, not... how did she get less insane?"

"You sure you want to know?" Tobias asked. Howard nodded. "There was a guy, and he loved her to distraction. When she put a microwave oven through the patio doors, he just put his arms around her and held her till she calmed down. I guess it's easier for a guy; he was big enough that she couldn't beat him up like men do their wives. Anyway, he just kept on loving her no matter what, and eventually she started to get better. They... the Company hoped they would stay together so they could put her back out in the field... this guy was really head over heels... but eventually they broke up."

"How come?" asked Howard, although now he almost seemed to be suppressing a smile.

"The guy's wife had some objections."

Now Howard did smile. He was playing with his phone, thumbing it as if sending a message.

"You can't get through to her," Tobias told him. "At a minimum, they will have removed the battery from her phone to prevent it being used to locate her."

"I know," said Howard. His thumbs kept moving.

"Anyway," said Tobias, "I figure if we go over what's public about all the Soviet operatives who were working in the area at the time and cross-reference their current location, we can maybe help identify the team that's after your wife. What do you think?"

"Sounds like a plan. We have access to those files?"

"Not here, but we can get them." Tobias was beginning to like this guy. Most husbands would have bolted the minute they knew the wife was in serious danger, but this one was game to protect her from a distance. "Come on," Tobias said. "Let's get some lunch, and then we'll dive in."

* * *

><p>It was amazing, Will Pope told himself, what a cold compress applied to his forehead and a quick lie-down in a dark room did for those horrid headaches. That and a cup of peppermint tea had pretty much set him to rights. He was beginning to feel guilty about what he had done to Sharon Raydor when his phone beeped. He thumbed it open and read the message.<p>

What he read propelled him up off his office sofa and out the door. It also brought his migraine back with a vengeance.

* * *

><p>Howard liked home cooking, it seemed. Tobias took him to a truck stop on I-95 and watched him put away the all-you-can-eat meat loaf and mashed potatoes until the staff started cheering every time he went back to the buffet. Not surprisingly, Howard excused himself to the mens' room as they left.<p>

Twenty minutes later, Tobias finally went looking for the man, but of course he was gone. Tobias tried to phone Gibbs, but the other man's phone was off.

Most husbands would have bolted, Tobias reminded himself. This guy was smarter than that. Tobias hoped he wasn't so smart that he got his wife killed.


	13. Chapter 13

A whining noise woke Gibbs. He was lying on an Oriental rug, spooned around an armful of beautiful red hair. After a couple of deep breaths he remembered that he was lying in Sharon's foyer. They'd had sex twice and were still no more than six feet from her front door, and he was almost fully clothed. This woman was going to kill him. He dragged himself to his feet, closed his trousers and let her dogs back inside. They padded across the room and licked their owner's face. She was wearing nothing but a peach-colored silk slip with intricate lacy bits. The bare bits of her back had rug burns, and there were angry red bruises beginning to form just above the backs of her knees, where Gibbs had pressed her thighs...

He banished that image. No way he would survive a third round, not of any such furious coupling as theirs. Sharon didn't look to be in such good shape herself. She hadn't moved, not even to push away the dogs, although she was shivering a bit. Gibbs knelt and touched her shoulder.

"Sharon?" he whispered.

She didn't answer, but her shivering intensified. He rolled her on her back and the shaking deepened into definite spasms. Sharon's eyes blinked furiously, and moisture dribbled from one side of her mouth until a long pink dog tongue licked it away.

Okay, Gibbs could deal with this. His daughter had had convulsions when she was very young. He did a slow count to thirty, but nothing had changed. He counted again, his apprehension rising. Finally the woman lay still.

"Sharon?" he said. "You okay? You got epilepsy, or something?"

"No."

Of course not. She was a cop. Even LA couldn't be that open-minded.

"How you feel?" he asked.

"Sleepy."

"Let's get you in bed," he said. He'd call Jenny, tell her Sharon was in no state...

Sharon rolled into a fetal position and the convulsions started again. That, Gibbs knew, was not a good thing. He scooped her into his arms and ran for the car.

* * *

><p>"So what's in LA?" the trucker asked Fritz.<p>

"My wife," he replied. He had to tell the man something. At a minimum, it would take three or four days to get across country hitching, even with plenty of gas money to trade for a ride. Of course, every time he passed his credit card through a reader, he gave Tobias Fornell and the whole US intellingence establishement a point on a map, but that couldn't be helped.

"She run off?" the driver asked.

"Nope. I had to work in... in Baltimore for a week, and her old boyfriend showed up." Hopefully, Fritz told himself, the old boyfriend actually had shown up by now. He hated to admit it, but he had a lot more confidence in Pope's will to protect Brenda than in all the Federal agents on earth.

Himself excluded, of course.

"That sucks," the trucker said. "You know there's quicker ways to get home, right?"

"I need to get there quietly," Fritz told him. "This guy has connections."

The trucker looked at him through narrowed eyes.

"You mind if I make a suggestion?" he asked.

* * *

><p>Brenda looked up when Jenny snapped her phone closed, then opened it again with some force.<p>

"What's wrong?" she asked. Jenny shook her head, scowling at her phone.

"Pick up, Gibbs," she muttered. "Pick up!"

When Jenny gave up, Brenda asked her again: "What's wrong?"

Jenny looked at her, and Brenda could feel the effort with which she forced out the words.

"If your husband were in the wind, Brenda" she said, "where would he go?"


	14. Chapter 14

A knock at Brenda's front door brought out weapons all around. Jenny's firm hand kept Brenda in her seat as Provenza walked to the door.

"Chief Pope!" he said, and stood aside.

"Is she..." Will spotted Brenda and strode across the room. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"They say something's happened to Fritz," she told him. "He... he's disappeared."

"He's a smart guy, Brenda," Will said. "He'll be okay."

"You're just saying that 'cause..."

"No, I really mean... he'll be okay! Brenda! Fritz is okay. Really."

"You have some knowledge on this subject, Chief?" asked Jenny.

"You have no secure safe house in Los Angeles, Director?"

"Not secure enough," Jenny said. Brenda looked up at her and saw distaste in her eyes. Jenny saw that she saw, and laid warm fingers against Brenda's face. "No one is going to hurt you, Brenda. No one. That's why we are all here, to make sure no one hurts you. This," she told Will, "is not a place anyone would expect to find us, and it is relatively secure..."

They were interrupted when the front door crashed open again and two black Dobermans burst in, followed by Agent Gibbs carrying a half-naked Sharon Raydor, whose body was wracked by convulsions.

"Ducky!" Gibbs called.

"Dear God, Jethro," the doctor said, "what have you done to her?"

"Nothing that ever made anyone have convulsions before!" Gibbs spat. "It's been about twenty minutes that I know of. She shakes for a couple of minutes, then it lets up and starts again."

"Does she have a history...?"

"No," said Will. "Not in her record, anyway, unless pre-eclampsia counts. Wumpus! Hurkle! Lie down!"

The dogs settled beside Will at Brenda's feet.

"Her dogs are named Wumpus and Hurkle?" said the tall woman working at the computer.

"When was this episode...?" the doctor asked.

"A while," said Will. "Her youngest son is a trauma surgeon at Mercy."

"They let her reproduce?" marveled Provenza.

Gibbs spun around with Sharon still in his arms.

"Hey!" he snarled. Provenza took a step backward.

"Put her on the table, Jethro," said the doctor. "Has she eaten anything...?

The timeline disappeared from the dining table, and Gibbs set Sharon down. Brenda blinked. From her position she could see that the FID director was not wearing panties. She was apparently a natural redhead, and she had been... oh, dear. She had been busy.

Gibbs was holding out a crushed coffee cup, one of the ones from the anonymous delivery back at headquarters. The tall dark girl took it, picked up a case and started for the kitchen.

"It was in the car," he said. "She brought it with her. She finished the whole thing."

"Be a few minutes for the tests," she told Ducky, "even if I get really lucky."

"Start with cholinesterase inhibitors," Ducky told her. "McGee, diazepam. There should be a pre-filled syringe..."

"Got it."

The boyish agent laid the syringe in the doctor's hand. He peeled its wrapper off, plunged the needle into Sharon's thigh and depressed the plunger.

Will Pope stood up and went to the table. He looked carefully at Sharon's wrists, then the backs of her knees. He lifted the skirt of her slip for a second, long enough to verify the bruises forming at the inside top of each thigh, then pulled it back down. He looked at Gibbs.

"What did you do to her?" he demanded.

"What are you, twelve?" Gibbs roared back. "What does it look like we did? And I asked her, every time, and she said yes every time and... and when I woke up after she was like that."

The tall man's face was red and his eyes full of tears. Jenny stepped over the dogs and pushed between him and Will.

"They don't know you, Jethro," she said. "They don't know you... just wouldn't."

"Is she going to be okay?" he asked the doctor.

"She never was before," said Provenza.

"Lieutenant Provenza," Brenda said, "Why don't you do another perimeter check? Now, please."

Sharon's spasms had eased.

"You gonna pump her stomach?" Gibbs asked the doctor.

"It's been more than an hour, so no, but we should decontaminate her skin," the doctor said. "A shower, and we should wash her hair thoroughly."

Gibbs reached for Sharon, but he ran into Will Pope's outstretched arm.

"You don't touch her again," the chief growled, "until she can tell us herself what happened."

"Bingo!" The tall girl returned from the kitchen and handed the doctor a slip of paper. "I didn't know that stuff was still legal," she said.

"It's not," said the doctor, "at least not here, but some places are not so picky. Abby, you're big enough to hold her. Would you shower with her?"

"Decon-thing? Sure. McGee, you wanna carry her in there for me? And give me my bag. I've got something she can wear."

The boyish agent stepped around Pope and Gibbs and scooped Sharon from the table. She was beginning to move with purpose, as if she might be regaining consciousness.

"Where's the shower?" the agent asked.

"This way," said Brenda. "I'd better help you. If she wakes up there should be somebody there that she knows."


	15. Chapter 15

"Is something wrong, Director?" asked DiNozzo.

"I think our protectee just gained a new appreciation for the tactical situation," Jenny told him.

"We should be elsewhere," said Ducky. "And if we have to move quickly, that woman is going to slow us down."

"We're not leaving her behind," said Gibbs.

"We can't afford to," the doctor said.

"Why?" asked Chief Pope. "She should be in a hospital anyway. Or I could take her to Simon... her son, the doctor."

"She would be interrogated," said Ziva. "They both would. You too, if you were caught."

"In her condition," said Ducky, "this sort of interrogation will kill her, even if she tells everything she knows immediately. And what she no doubt knows..."

"We," said Ziva, "would be trading the protectee's life for hers, with no guarantee that she will survive in any case."

"Wait a minute," said Pope. "Life?"

"Did you think we were protecting Brenda from a hangnail?" Jenny asked him. "Let me lay it out for you, Chief. The Russians want Brenda because of something she learned during an interrogation a couple of decades ago, and even Brenda doesn't know exactly what that is. The allied intelligence community doesn't want the Russians to get that information, and the easiest way to stop them is to eliminate the information, probably with a sniper rifle. Is that clear enough for you?"

"The CIA...?" said Detective... Jenny groped for the name...right, Detective Gabriel, like the angel. "The CIA is trying to kill the Chief? But she was one of them!"

It was the same incredulity that Brenda herself had had, when the young subject of one of her interrogations had been carelessly disposed of so that she became aware of it. Brenda had called, and Jenny had come running to a place that didn't exist. Her ID had gained her access, and Brenda had flown into her arms like a frightened child fleeing to its mother.

Interrogators were more valuable than field agents. Their talents were rarer, and Brenda was talented beyond belief. Jenny was reassigned, given the care of Brenda Leigh Johnson. The first night they hadn't slept at all, only paused between languid couplings. On the next night, Brenda woke up screaming in Dari and then cried in Jenny's arms the rest of the night.

"Take her to Washington," Jenny had been told. "Turn her over to the cleanup crew."

Just like that, Brenda went from asset to liability. That night it was Jenny who had the bad dreams.

"Director?" Chief Pope's hand was on her arm, and he was glaring down at her. "Are you suggesting what I think you are?"

"I'm not suggesting anything, Chief. I'm assessing the situation."

"Well, assess this: in Los Angeles, if you conspire, before or after the fact, in the rape and murder of a police officer, you spend the rest of your life on Death Row and at the end the observation booth will be crowded with people now standing in this room."

"Nobody raped anybody," said Gibbs, "and nobody... I was a Marine. We don't leave people behind."

"I was, too," said Detective Sanchez, moving to stand beside Gibbs. "And that means nobody, not even Captain Raydor."

"What did she do to get you all so down on her?" asked DiNozzo.

"Internal affairs," said Gabriel.

"Oh," said Tony. "I feel your pain." He looked up at Gibbs. "Still not leaving her, though."

"Everyone understand:" Jenny said. "Leaving this woman behind is not what we're discussing. We're talking about how to spare her an interrogation with people whose methods are purely horrific, people who will have no reason to keep her alive afterward."

"This woman has a name!" said Gibbs. "It's Sharon! Use it, when you talk about what you're going to do to her!"

"She... Sharon has three children and four grandchildren," said Pope, "and medals from before most of you were born."

"She drove three downed officers out of the Rodney King riots with a bullet in her leg and people shooting at her," said Provenza, "cussing the stick shift all the way."

"And you know this how?" asked Gabriel.

"I was one of them," Provenza answered. He stood up and slouched over to stand beside Gibbs and Sanchez, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. One by one the rest of Brenda's team joined them, and then McGee and DiNozzo.

"All right," said Jenny, "but if we're going to try to save them both," she told Pope, "we need to move. We need to be somewhere nobody knows about, and I mean nobody, and we have to do it in a way no one can trace."

"Chief Johnson's parents' motor home is in storage here," said Flynn, "from when we..."

Pope glared at him, and the man stumbled into silence.

"That might work," Jenny said. "Can you get it? Fill up whatever needs filled? And everybody, get to a bank and get as much cash as you can before we start."

"That's going to send up red flags," said McGee.

Pope's cell phone buzzed. He peered at the message.

"Fritz," he said. "He's at Ontario."

"I thought you didn't know where to find him," said Jenny.

"Ontario, Canada?" asked Ziva.

"Ontario airport," said Lieutenant... Brenda had too many lieutenants working for her. This was the Chinese one, Lieutenant Tao. "Off the ten halfway to San Bernardino," he finished.

"That will do," said Jenny. "If we leave your cars there, there's a chance people will assume we flew out. Get the money and the motor home and rendezvous at the airport in three hours. And nobody tell anybody anything, not wife, not girlfriend, not anybody."

One of Sharon's dogs whined.

"Are we bringing them?" Jenny asked.

"Them," said Pope, "and Joel." He stretched a long arm up to the top of the refrigerator, lifted the surprised orange cat and tucked it into his jacket.

"Okay, people," said Gibbs, "get the bathing beauties out of the shower and let's move!"


End file.
